Annie
I walked into the kitchen to find Taylor and Diana sitting at the table. Diana was reading the newspaper, Taylor just had his chin in his hand and a faraway look in his eyes. I cleared my throat to announce my presence, but it was barely acknowledged. Diana looked up momentarily. Taylor moved his eyes toward me and then gestured to the seat across from him.
Nervously, I sat down.
“Just came by to see if you were okay,” I said as I pulled the chair up closer to the table. I raised my eyebrows at him, examining him a little bit. He looked very much like the emotionally distraught young man he was, for once. Very downcast, very tired. “Are you?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, I’m okay,” he said. “Look, Annie we have to talk about Parker.”
I sighed. “I know, I know,” I said. “I promise you I will tell him very soon. I know I haven’t been fair to him since he’s been here and that he needs to know and that it’s time he was told, despite how I feel. I should just put my fears aside and come out with it. I promise I will soon, Taylor...”
He was shaking his head from the moment I started speaking, but it took me a moment to stop my babbling in order to acknowledge it.
“What?” I said, feeling the air get heavier all of a sudden.
He cleared his throat and shifted in his seat uncomfortably.
“He already knows,” he said.
My heart must have stopped beating for a good minute after he said that. Fear washed over me like a giant wave washes over a beach during a bad storm. Just from the way he was acting, I knew the news was not good.
“How?” I asked, my voice flat.
“I told him,” he said.
“You told him,” I repeated, feeling fear turn momentarily to hurt. I suddenly felt denied something. Denied the opportunity to tell him things he needed to hear as he was being told. Things so he would understand. Things even Taylor couldn’t explain. Only I could.
But I was chickenshit and this was proof. I knew and Taylor knew it. If it had been left solely up to me, I probably never would have gathered the courage to do it.
Still, I couldn’t help but feel angry that he had gone ahead and done it himself.
“Actually,” he went on when it was clear that I wasn’t going to. “Actually, um, I think he had it pretty much figured out anyway. He brought me into his room and asked me to tell him what was going on.”
“How did he have it figured out?” I asked, my voice still toneless.
“Lots of ways,” he said. “He found a picture of Collin Windsor that Maggie Windsor gave me at the funeral and a different picture in your garage. He accidentally walked into my room on his way to the bathroom the other day. He knew that something was going on and had a right to know what.”
“And...?” I said.
“And?” he said back.
“How did he react?”
At that point, Diana got up and left the room, her newspaper in hand. Needless to say, this worried me.
“Not too well,” he told me once she was gone. “He got mad that we hadn’t told him before, obviously.”
“Did you explain to him why we hadn’t told him before?”
“I tried,” he said. “But I honestly can’t really think why anymore. I told him you were scared to tell him but he seems to think that you just wanted to make sure you liked him before you went ahead and told him.”
I closed my eyes for a minute.
“Annie, he was angry,” he said. “He wasn’t thinking about what he was saying.”
“I don’t know about that,” I said.
There was a pause in the conversation.
“What now?” he asked.
“Should I go talk to him?” I asked.
“You’re the mother,” he reminded me.
“You saw him last,” I pointed out.
He thought for a moment before shaking his head. “I don’t think you should. Not now. He only found out this morning and he’s probably still pretty wound up about it. Isaac and Zac have been trying to get him to come of his room all day, but he won’t.”
“You haven’t been trying?” I asked. “To get him out of his room, I mean. To talk to him. To explain things better so he doesn’t...hate me.”
“No,” he said. “I doubt he’ll talk to me right now. I doubt he’ll talk to any of us.”
I sighed and stood up.
“I’m going to try anyway,” I said.
“I’ll come with you,” he replied, getting up also.
Together, we walked up the stairs and he showed me to the door that led to the room Parker was staying in. I felt the fear again, the one that I had felt every time I had almost told him. But this time I squashed it. There was no room for it anymore.
I knocked on the door.
There was no answer.
I knocked again and waited.
No answer.
“Parker?” I called into the room. “It’s me, Annie.”
Nothing.
“Are you even in there?” I asked. “Look, please come out. Please let me explain everything to you. I can understand that you’re angry and hurt, but please let me...let me tell you my side.”
More silence.
I turned to Taylor.
“Are you sure he’s in there?” I whispered.
He nodded.
“Okay, you don’t want to talk, that’s cool,” I said. “But please understand that I never meant to hurt you with any of this, even though I know I did a great deal. I’m so sorry.”
Nothing.
I sighed and turned back around, following Taylor back down the stairs. Walker was waiting for us at the bottom, his eyes simultaneously cold and concerned.
“Anything?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Taylor replied for me.
Walker nodded and walked away.
“I should go,” I said.
“You don’t have to,” he said.
“Yeah, I do,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
I waved my hand at him carelessly. I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t sure if it was okay with me or not that Taylor had told Parker.
“Bye,” he said as I walked down the front steps and to my car.
Do you know all the words to "American Pie" without looking? That has nothing to do with the story. Just wondering.
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Seven